Monday, 9 June 2014

Together in peace

The visit of Pope
Francis to the Holy Land would only ever make sense in retrospect. When he,
Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the Palestinian leader, President
Mahmoud Abbas and Israel’s President Shimon Peres prayed together in the
Vatican Gardens, it was proof positive that “Israelis and Palestinians, Jews,
Christians and Muslims... can express his or her desire for peace for the Holy
Land and for all who dwell there.” Praying in Hebrew, English, Italian and
Arabic, the representatives of millions of men, women and children expressed “the
desire of their respective peoples to invoke to God the common longing for
peace”.

On his arrival in
Rome, President Peres declared, “I have come to the Vatican from the State of
Israel, together with the representatives of the main monotheistic religions in
Israel for an extraordinary event for peace.” He expressed the thoughts of
countless people across the world when he continued, ““I hope that this event
will contribute to advancing peace between the parties and throughout the
entire world.”

Pope Francis is
realistic. Bringing together the two Presidents is unlikely to bring about
instantaneous peace between Israeli and Palestinian. Father Pierbattista
Pizzaballa, the head of the Franciscan Order in the Middle East, organized the
historic joint prayer event in the Vatican Gardens. He commented, “The Pope
wants to look beyond, upwards. Not everything is decided by politics.”

The prayer session took place in the quiet
and neutral space of the Vatican Gardens. Amongst the representatives of
Judaism and Islam, Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Muslim Professor Omar Abboud were
also present. These two friends of Francis’ from Buenos Aires also accompanied
him on his trip to the Middle East, Divided into sections for each faith,
Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders read texts relating to peace
from the Bible, the New Testament and the Koran.

Addressing people of all faiths and none, the
Pope declared, “Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare. It calls for the courage to say yes to
encounter and no to conflict...” In his own message, Peres departed from his
prepared text to say, “I was young. Now I am old. I experienced war. I tasted
peace. Never will I forget the bereaved families — parents and children — who
paid the cost of war. And all my life I shall never stop to act for peace, for
generations to come.” For his part, Abbas prayed, "O Lord, bring comprehensive
and just peace to our country and region so that our people and the peoples of
the Middle East and the whole world would enjoy the fruit of peace, stability
and coexistence."

The three leaders then jointly planted an
olive tree as a sign of their commitment to peace.

When Pope Francis recently travelled to the
Holy Land, he knew that he walked a spiritual and political tightrope between
conflicting sensibilities. His was no pleasure trip. Every word was weighed in
advance. Every syllable and gesture could have consequences which could further
or disrupt any movement towards peace and reconciliation. Commentators across
the world debated the effect of his three-day visit to the part of the world so
sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and yet so torn by differences of
outlook and understanding. Inevitably, his words and actions pleased some and
irritated others.

High security
surrounded his time in Israel. There were no walkabouts as in Jordan. The
Pope’s journeys between venues were not surrounded by large and enthusiastic crowds
as in Bethlehem. It is, perhaps, a backhanded compliment that one Israeli
official wryly commented as the papal entourage left Israel, "I suppose we
must count his visit as a success because he managed to irritate and to please both
the Palestinians and the Israelis." By this, he referred to Francis’
unscheduled stop at the controversial security wall which divides the West Bank
from Israel. Then, hours later, he visited the memorial for those Israelis who
had been killed by Palestinian attacks. His words at the Holocaust Memorial of
Yad Vashem must rank as some of the most sensitive and personal ever to have
been uttered by a Pope. Nobody could have remained unmoved by the depth and
urgency of his plea, "Never again, Lord, never again!"

On landing in Israel,
Francis knew that he would meet, not only President Shimon Peres and Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but also Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.
Their encounters would hold momentous significance for the future of the
Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

The meeting between
Francis and Bartholomew in Jerusalem recalled the fiftieth anniversary of the meeting
between Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenogorus. After the subsequent half-century
of discussion and rapprochement, this get-together between Rome and
Constantinople in the persons of Francis and Bartholomew was always to be
highly significant. It turned out to have been more important than anybody
could have realised. At a press conference a few hours later, Father Federico
Lombardi SJ declared that, “It was a wonderful meeting that nobody wanted to
end”. In fact, it over-ran by an hour.

In the days following
that engagement, hopes have been expressed by the Pope and the Patriarch that
2025 will see another unique event: a joint and truly Ecumenical Council
between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The proposed Third Council of Nicaea will
mark 1700 years since the First Council in 325. One outcome of the First
Council was the Nicene Creed, described as "the earliest dogmatic statement
of Christian orthodoxy”. The Second Council of Nicaea differentiated between
the worship and the veneration of holy images, condemning the first and
supporting the second. Perhaps a Third Council might lead to the reunification
of Catholic and Orthodox?

The Pope’s suggestion
for such a high-level prayer meeting between a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim
was groundbreaking. Francis made it even more historic by subsequently
proposing to Patriarch Bartholomew that he also join them in the Vatican. The
announcement that it would take place on the feast of Pentecost could scarcely
have been more favourable. Whereas Christians celebrate the feast this year on
8 June, Judaism celebrated the same feast (Shavuot)
on 4 and 5 June. For Christians, Pentecost marks the birth of the Church with
the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles. The Jewish feast recalls the
day that God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, in other words,
the formal foundation of Judaism.

It speaks volumes
about the credibility of Pope Francis that, in bringing together Peres and
Abbas, he prayed with two men who long for peace but whose people are so often
embroiled in violent conflict. There is no easy solution to the troubles of the
Middle East. It is perhaps telling that John Kerry, the American Secretary of
State, remarked, “This Pope knows he probably won’t be able to make peace. But
preventing war – that he can do.”

“An epidemic of peace” is unlikely to break
out in the Middle East. Yet the joint time for prayer in the Vatican Gardens
showed that it is entirely possible to come together and to talk about peace.
The presence of Patriarch Bartholomew also demonstrated that the rift of many
centuries between East and West can be healed. Mutually-inflicted wounds do not
need to be picked at until they fester. The world CAN unite itself with the
prayer of Pope Francis:"Keep alive
within us the flame of hope, so that with patience and perseverance we may opt
for dialogue and reconciliation. In this
way may peace triumph at last, and may the words 'division', 'hatred' and 'war'
be banished from the heart of every man and woman."

Willpower and the
determination to work for peace will see that prayer granted.